Standing Up
by riptide1500
Summary: Mark was having a bad day, and the idiot Leo Valdez bumping him was the last straw. But why how is Percy Jackson, the popular and perfect, so close with the annoying kid?


In a hallway, in a prestigious school in New York, there was a large crowd gathering, and though the students at this school were rich, and knew how to be polite and charming, the crowd surrounding the event taking place was jeering, ooing and ahing as a large, meaty boy was whaling on a little tan boy with crazy hair. The little one wasn't fighting back for some reason. No one knew why, but they encouraged him to do so. But this was against the ways of one Leo Valdez, who was told to never fight a mortal.

Mark was having a bad day. His mom didn't wake him up or make him his favorite breakfast, which was completely inconsiderate of her since she was only going to one of her company's meetings. His dad was in London for some stupid reason that he hadn't paid attention to, because he was always gone, and the reasons just didn't matter anymore. His sister didn't make him breakfast either, because she was being selfish and only made enough for her, and she missed the bus, so he would have to give her a ride in his red convertible, a gift from his partially absent father.

As a popular kid with a lot of muscle, people liked him, so he was always greeted when he went into school. This time was no different. The only issue was, all the girls had their eyes on Percy Jackson, the freak puberty was really kind to. His personality was fake and God awful, but he was going far in the looks department. He took a lot of attention away from Mark when he moved here their senior year, which he pretended to not like. He had his own group of friends, the people he did swim, lacrosse or football with that he managed to convince he was a good person, but no one from Mark's friend group could stand him. Mostly because Mark couldn't stand him. But as he passed by, Percy looked up and gave a nod. He acted like he had forgiven Mark or some other crap, just so he could villainize him. He was a terrible kid, and Mark had almost all of his classes with him, since they were both dyslexic, but Percy was way worse and also had ADHD, the freak. Still, the agreed that they couldn't fight during second block on the first day, since that's how long it took them to get a detention. Still, today felt different.

All his classes seemed longer and way more hard and boring, and everyone was pissing him off. The girl he had wanted to get with at Jake White's party next Friday, Eliza, asked Percy out, his best friend Seth Miller had the flu, so he wouldn't at school for the rest of the week, and his buddies were just… annoying. So when Leo Valdez bumped into him, it was the last straw.

Everyone knew Leo, and for bad reasons. He was turned down before he would even open his mouth every time he approached a girl, gave cheesy pickup lines, loved himself to no end, and was incredibly smart for a Sophomore, as he was in Senior Engineering, Math, and Physics. He was also scrawny, had terrible hair, and was short. Not to mention that whenever he fell asleep during class, he would start trembling, them he would wake up and speak Spanish or gibberish that people said sounded like Greek. He only had a few nerdy friends, and for some reason he respected Percy, which obviously made Mark mad. He was an easy target, so obviously he was picked on. The school nicknamed him Pablo-Juan Valdez, since he's a Mexican, and he got knocked around a lot. But usually that's where everyone, Mark included, ended it. But not today. He had one class left, shop, when Leo Valdez pushed in front of him and caused his backpack to split as he fell. Papers, pencils and binders were everywhere.

" _Lo siento"_ He shot over his shoulder with a grin. That little… Mark struggled to find the words to describe this little beast. Now he's done it.

"Valdez, come back here. I want to talk" He shouted, and everyone stopped.

It was a busy hallway, but suddenly it became silent, as people started to edge their way closer, sensing a fight. Valdez himself created a facial mask for himself, that smirking look he knew how to hold through pain, tears, and anger, for he too knew that there was to be a fight. It would be one sided of course, since he might hurt Mark with the amount of strength he got during the summer. Still, after all the pain he had endured, he knew this would hurt, not only his body, but more his pride. He was a savior of the world who would have to deal with this, just because he looked like a target.

"What do you want, _babosa_?" He asked, and with the Mask, Mark saw it as smug.

"What do I want? I want you to apologize."

'I'm so extremely sorry. Can't you tell? Remorse is flooding me, I am ashamed to have bumped the unavoidable tank that is you." He gave his voice a higher quality and tried to make it sound so fake he couldn't walk away, but Leo would be given credit by the principal for trying to not start the fight.

"You think that's funny? Huh? Know whats funny? How little tan will show compared to the amount of black and blue." And with that, everyone backed up and Mark punched Leo, who, honestly, took it quite well. Mark boxed as a kid, and so this was just… natural for him. He beat him up for at least 2 minutes and Leo said nothing, although his nose bled steadily and his left eye was swelling.

"Give up, Pablo-Juan?" He asked, grinning.

Leo looked at him through one eye, grinned as well, got up and came close to him. "Never." He said, tapping Mark's nose with his pointer finger. Of course Mark couldn't just take that, so he once again started to bloody his fists, and Leo Valdez. After good hits, there were winces or cheers, but no one tried to stop it. Many people were videoing, putting it on their snapchat stories or just taking it to show to friends. But from the back of the crowd came a loud

"Get off of him!" The crowd parted like the Red Sea as Percy Jackson ran over to the fight. Mark stopped, and looked up. "Jackson this is not your fight." People behind Mark were backing up, just because they could see the glare he was being given.

He swiftly walked over, took Mark by the shoulders, and with many the gasp, "what the hell?", and camera clicking, picked him up off of the smaller kid, with seemingly no effort. Mark squeaked. Percy grabbed Leo and did the same.

Mark expected the tall teen to turn to him, but he was completely ignored. Everyone's faces were immediately confused.

"LEO! What the fuck was that? You could have taken him. I've seen you drop Nyssa before. Why the Hades didn't you?" Leo looked up at Percy, who, to everyone's confusion was raging, and gave a sad half-smile.

"Not talking? Okay. What will Calypso think? We're going to camp tomorrow! You can't come to your girlfriend like this and expect her to be completely cool with it!" Everyone looked shocked. Leo had a girlfriend? Maybe he hadn't been trying to ask those girls out.

"Do you not understand that when Chiron made the rule to not fight, it's only exception was self defense? Leo, you are ten times better than him, don't let him take you down. Understand?" Leo staggered. Percy looked down at him, towering over the 5'6 boy at 6'4.

"But you're not in any shape to teach this jerk a lesson" He muttered, and Mark's eyes went wide. He looked through the crowd and found a girl that he had English with, who was relatively nice, and didn't seem to treat people badly. "Can you take Leo for a minute or so?" He asked, and the girl raised an eyebrow, but took the bleeding boy's arm around her shoulder to support him. Percy swiftly turned.

"Mark. You don't seem to understand much. But I'll explain this. There will always be repercussions to your actions. Beat a small kid up? 'Cause you can, 'cause they're weak, or 'cause they offended you? Yeah there's going to be some consequences. Karma. But today you messed with Leo Valdez, the savior of-" Percy stopped for a minute. How was he going to get out of this? Then he remembered what Annabeth said about what the Mist covered the Giant War as, a large gas leak that would have exploded New York. Idea! "The savior of New York. That gas leak? He fixed it, died, and then came back to life in an ambulance. He deserves respect. So this is for him."

With that, Percy punched Mark. He was going too fast to track for human eyes, but either way, it was not a fair fight. Percy was taller, faster, stronger and trained. Percy hit him with ease and grace, and everyone's cameras were following him to see what their eyes couldn't. Mark didn't get one hit in. Percy went for the places that would hurt him most when he regained consciousness, which Annabeth would kill him for, but he still thought revenge for Leo was worth it. Within a minute and a half he was knocked out, and everyone was silent as Percy Jackson grabbed Leo, slung him over his shoulder easily and walked out.

Chaos followed, but not one person was upset for Mark, since he got what he deserved.

Percy came back a week later with Leo looking better than ever, and this time they were followed by a group of 6 people. All beautiful, all muscular, and all wanting to deliver Mark to someone called Nico's dad.

Mark, let's just say, had a couple bad days more to follow this one.


End file.
